CSOs were able to doubt the lives they'd lived, but gunnery sergeants accepted responsibility for their decisions and moved on. They didn't dwell. And, yeah, she'd left the Corps, but the Corps would never really leave her.

  Twisting her hand above Craig's grip, Torin poured the coffee into his lap. They'd gotten dressed before emerging from Susumi space, so it didn't make as much of an impression as it could have.

  "Fukking hell, Torin!"

  Still, it was a fresh pot. Hadn't cooled much.

  Torin knew a lot of different ways to kill people. She could come up with three ways, off the top of her head, using the mug as a weapon. All things considered, a crotch of coffee rated minus five on a scale of one to ten.

  When she stepped back, Craig hung on. She could have broken his hold. She didn't. Minus five or not, she figured she owed him that much.

  He met her gaze, ignoring the liquid pooling in his lap. "Okay, it's too soon to joke about context. I'm sorry. If it means that much to you, we'll go check on the other ship."

  My business is none of your business.

  HE suits screamed for help if their wearers got into trouble they couldn't get out of. Beacons in the suits were slaved to the ships and when they went off, the ship would go off as well, extending the suit's range. If the ship was damaged, its own distress call would sound.

  The Promise wasn't picking up a distress call.

  But she was picking up registered CSO tags.

  Pirates would take the tagged debris, or what the hell was the point of being a pirate.

  "No, you're right…"

  "If I'm right," he interrupted, "why am I absorbing caffeine through my ass?"

  Four ways with the coffee mug. "You're right," she repeated, "that I need to start thinking more like a salvage operator."

  Craig nodded, relaxing slightly. "Without a distress call, they wouldn't thank us for dropping by."

  That surprised a laugh out of her. "I was a Marine. I didn't expect to get thanked."

  The battle debris had drifted into an interlinked mass, the smaller, more salvageable pieces fused to huge sheets of twisted metal and slabs of ceramic. Given the parts she could see, given the protection offered by the large, outer pieces of hull, Torin was willing to bet her pension that the odds of finding DNA remnants would be high. Maybe not the specific Marines she counted as her friends, but Marines.

  "This first trip out, we eyeball the puzzle pieces," Craig reminded her, waiting by the air lock as Torin checked his helmet seals. "We tag what'll give us the best resale price, maybe set a few small charges to break things up so that we can get a better look inside. DNA scans come later." He checked her seals in turn, then moved his hands to her shoulders and left them there. "We're not wearing propulsion, so we stay tethered to the ship or the end of the grapple at all times. Eyeballs on where I'm attached before you unhook. It's safer if we're not both off the ship at the same time."

  The urge to respond to this latest repetition of common sense masquerading as instruction with a noncommittal "Yes, sir." was intense, but that wasn't a dynamic she wanted to set up with Craig-he'd earned her respect a long time ago. And, in all fairness, in spite of her previous performance out by the pens, she understood why he erred on the side of caution. She'd been equally unwilling to trust his skills, all evidence to the contrary, when he'd been on her turf. Since the CSOs didn't have any kind of basic training to meld individuals into a unit, and would likely be appalled by the thought, all she could do toward being thought one of them, was give it time.

  So she said, "You think eight charges will be enough?" They were each carrying four.

  "We're not out here to fight a war."

  "Please," she snorted. "I could win a war with seven."

  They were close to the edge, as likely to run into a Primacy ship making a foray into Confederation space as a Confederation ship on patrol.

  "Eight should be aces, but there's only one way to find out for sure." He opened the air lock's inner door. Promise's interior lights shifted red-they were now a lot closer to vacuum than the ship's sensors were happy about. "After you."

  They used the heavier grapple to first tether the ship to the largest piece of wreckage and then to winch them closer, the wreckage winning the mass sweepstakes.

  Standing beside Craig on the edge of the deployed pen, Torin couldn't see his expression through the helmet's polarization, only her own blank silver reflection, but she could hear the smile in his voice when he gestured at the massive triangular piece of metal above them and said, "Race you," as he released his magnetic soles and pushed off.

  She considered jerking back on his safety line. Didn't. But it was close.

  In the end, she won only because her suit was newer and, when she flipped, she remagged her boots at full charge, allowing them to drag her down past him. She was moving fast enough at impact that she was glad she had her tongue tucked safely away from her teeth.

  Landing beside her two seconds later, Craig grunted, "Cheater."

  "Don't start with me, Ryder. Usually, there's a three count before a race."

  "Just assumed, you being an ex-gunnery sergeant and all, you should be handicapped to make it fair."

  She grinned and flipped him off. "Handicap this."

  They were standing on a piece blown out of the outer hull, roughly eight meters by four meters at the longest points, and half a meter thick-the two visible Susumi contact points on the metal no longer radiating.

  "You don't find that odd?" Torin leaned over to check that the information on Craig's sleeve matched hers. She didn't completely trust his aging tech. "Given the initial radiation readings?"

  "Dispersal," he said absently, his attention having been pulled deeper into the tangle. "Damn! Take a look there."

  "You want to be a little more specific?" There covered a lot of ground.

  "That piece, the blue-green one just past the cable end." His voice was as animated as Torin had ever heard it. "That's Other… Fuk it, Primacy tech. Premium scoop, babe! We get that out and we're building a deck."

  "Babe?" Love she could cope with. Lines had to be drawn.

  "Heat of the moment." She heard the grin in his voice.

  One hand gripping the edge of the hull, Torin turned until she could pull herself headfirst a short distance into the debris. "Piece we want looks fused to that link section, but I can't get a good enough angle on it to see for certain." With the magnification on her faceplate at maximum, she could see pitting caused by tiny pieces of debris but still couldn't see the point where the Primacy tech butted up against the link.

  They were going to have to blast it clear.

  "Do we tag it for later?" she asked reaching for the tagging gun strapped to her thigh.

  "We tag it for now." Craig pulled one of his charges from the pouch. "This, we don't wait for."

  Maybe she was a little more excited about that than she needed to be, but so far, the crazy, dangerous life of the civilian salvage operator had been a bit dull. "They're both suited up and climbing around the debris, Captain. We can go on your order."

  "We need Ryder." Cho gripped the edge of his board. "He's the registered CSO. Doc says the woman was Corps long enough for it to mark her, so cut her free when we take him." Only a fool brought that kind of trouble on board and Mackenzie Cho's mama had raised no fool.

  "You got it. Or him." Dysun made a small adjustment to her scanners and sat back, looking pleased with herself. "One of them is enough larger to account for Human gender differences and is in a significantly older suit. The smaller one, she's wearing a Marine design, no more than a year old. Sending specifics to cargo."

  "Almon?"

  "It's enough data to aim the net around him if you can get him out in the open, Captain."

  Dysun answered before Cho could. "I take out their tethers, and send the next shot into the debris. That'll shake them loose. That is if Huirre can keep us pointed the right way."

  "I could fly this ship right up your ass," Huirre growled.

  "Promises, promises."

  "Move in fast," Cho snapped. "Dysun, you take out the ship as soon as their proximity alarms go off. We don't want them getting back to it and fukking dying on us. Then take out the tethers, then hit the debris. If you've got a clear shot at the woman, take it. Get her out of Almon's way."

  "Aye, Captain." The ends of her hair flipped back and forth

  This was going to work, he could feel it. This time, Craig Ryder would give them the information they needed. Cho could see the armory opening. He could almost feel one of the Corps' ubiquitous KC-7s in his hands, bucking back as he switched it to full auto and squeezed the trigger. Ships in orbit could EMP more complex weapons but no one on either side had been able to dream up a way to stop a basic chemical reaction from happening. Armed with KC-7s, they could take over any station they docked at.

  This time, nothing would go wrong. "Dysun, whatever happens to their drive, happens to you."

  Her hair stilled. "Aye, Captain." "The fuk!" As Promise's proximity siren screamed through his suit's comm link, Craig, slapped his last charge down, and worked his way backward along the path of his tether as fast as possible. Unfortunately, as fast as possible was too fukking slow, but a hole ripped into his suit by a jagged edge would slow him more. "Torin! Have you got a visual?" He didn't have to shout to be heard over the siren, the comm would take care of volume levels, but it felt good. Like he was doing something.

  "Negative. Still obscured by wreckage."

  "It's probably the wreckage that set it off." He jerked his line off a twisted cable end. "If we got it moving…"

  "Not unless you've been putting on weight," Torin snorted. "Four meters and I'm out."

  He could see the patch of stars that marked his entry to the clump's inner labyrinth. "I'm out in three."

  They emerged at roughly the same time. Torin popped out and kept rising at about 120 degrees to his zero, clearing the slab of metal cutting up like a fin out of the tangle and then remagging her boots to snap down onto the upper edge. "I've pinged the Promise. The debris hasn't moved."

  "Then what the fuk…" His boots demagged, he pushed off, grabbed a loop of piping, swung around it until he pointed the right way, then bent his arms and shoved off. As he landed three meters from Torin's position, the top of the Promise's cabin blew off, debris spraying out as she decompressed into vacuum.

  He didn't remember moving, but Torin's grip on his ankle said they both had.

  "Let me go, damn it!" He had to get to his lady. She wasn't answering, but he knew she wasn't dead. Holed, yes, open to vacuum, but nothing crucial had been hit.

  "Craig! Listen to me! There's a ship…"

  The next shot took out the line holding Promise to the wreckage.

  In order to set the charges around the piece of tech, they'd both tethered to the grapple head. With that gone, the only thing holding him in place was Torin's grip.

  He could see the incoming ship. Ex-Navy with a cargo hold attached like half the small freighters in known space. But the guns said…

  "Pirates!"

  "No shit!" The next shot slapped into the slab of metal just under Torin's boots. Craig whipped backward as her knees buckled, but she hung on. "They want the salvage! We need to get clear!"

  "No! It's not the salvage they're after!"

  "Damn it, Torin, you don't know…"

  The next shot slid behind the slab and into the wreckage.

  The clump shuddered.

  He felt Torin's grip shift as her body adjusted to the movement under her feet.

  Then the charges blew. Shards of debris flew past. Hit his shoulder. His suit absorbed most of the impact, but it fukking hurt.

  He heard Torin grunt, more an exhalation than an actual sound as though, just for that moment, she were breathing inside his helmet with him.

  Then he felt her grip fall away.

  She'd never have let him go were she still able to hold on.

  "Torin!"

  He saw stars, the attacking ship, his poor wounded lady, debris flying off in every possible direction, Torin caught up in it-the bright orange of her HE suit, visible then obscured by wreckage as he pinwheeled. He reached out. Stupidly. She'd absorbed more of the blast. Was moving away faster than he was spinning. Red lights flashed around the edge of her helmet.

  Red lights…

  Air leak!

  Craig tasted blood as he slammed against the mesh of a cable net, jaw impacting with the hard edge of his suit's collar. His faceplate, crossed by four cables, creaked but held. He couldn't turn his head, but if they'd netted him, they planned to haul him in. The ship he'd seen while spinning had to have been two kilometers away, minimum. Two kilometers of cable gave him time…

  His charges were gone, but he had a cutting tool on his belt. Much smaller but the same basic principle as the Marine's bennies.

  Don't think about Marines now.

  Right arm trapped between two loops, he shoved his left between his body and the net.

  Torin's trained for this, he reminded himself. Situations like this.

  Fumbling the magnetic clasp out, he managed to shove his first two fingers into the tool pouch.

  If Torin were conscious, she'd have her suit patched before she lost enough air for it to matter.

  With the charges gone, it wasn't that hard to hook out the cutter.

  If Torin were conscious, she'd be talking, implant to implant, to keep the pirates from overhearing. If she'd been hit hard enough to damage her implant…

  The cutter was harder to use with his left hand, and working so close to his body, there was always the chance he'd hole his own suit.

  Didn't stop him from aiming it at the net and turning it up to full burn.

  All he could hear was his own breath. In. Out. A little too fast. A little too hard.

  Three strands through.

  Four.

  One more…

  A sudden shadow caught his attention. Craig turned his head to see the edge of a cargo door go by on his right. He'd barely been pulled over the threshold when the gravity generators kicked in and slammed him down hard onto the deck, the edge of his tank driving into his kidneys with enough force to ensure he'd be pissing blood. Teeth clenched, he flopped over onto his side.

  And saw…

  He wasn't sure what it was, but it was fukking huge and explained why they'd dropped him so close to the door. There wasn't room to drop him any farther in.

  A siren wailed as the doors started to close, and he fought the weight of the net to raise himself up onto his hands and knees. Promise still had power. Craig could see her lights flashing in the distance. If he could get to her, he could get to Torin.

  Then the door closed, the halves coming together hard enough he felt the vibrations through his gloves. Through his knees. As he watched, still crawling forward, the telltales turned green.

  He kept crawling. Inching forward. Muscles screaming.

  That was the way out, and he was Goddamned well going out it.

  Suddenly, the floor receded as the net lifted about half a meter into the air. He grunted as his weight drove the cables into his chest, making it hard to breathe. His right leg slipped through the gap he'd cut, but his left remained hung up.

  When they came to get him out, he'd get one chance.

  He went limp, cutting tool hopefully hidden behind the curve of his gloved fingers. With luck, they'd think he'd taken damage and was a little out of it.

  With luck, they'd be quick about it because he didn't know how long he could overcome his need to move, to get free, to get to his ship, to get to Torin.

  The net started to swing almost immediately.

  Maybe his luck was changing.

  He turned his head inside the helmet, the polarizing making the movement invisible from the outside, and saw boots approaching. HE boots. They hadn't pressurized the cargo bay, then.

  As the wearer of the boots peeled the net away, and he could feel himself begin to fall, Craig flicked his cutter on. Letting gravity win, he dropped free of the net, landing back on his hands and knees.

  He made contact, that much he knew, but he had no idea how much damage he'd done. No idea if he'd bought himself enough time to get to the door.

  Surging up onto his feet, he'd taken only two steps forward when something jabbed his thigh, and the jolt snapped his head back, driving the edge of the suit's collar into the back of his neck.

  Torin would've made sure the bastard stayed down, he thought as he pitched forward, slamming face first into the deck, mouth filled with blood from where he driven his teeth through his tongue. Next time… "You had to fukking knock him out?" Cho glared up at Almon, who glared back, the ends of his hair carving short choppy arcs over the collar of his suit.

  "The ablin gon savit tried to take Nadayki's leg off." Almon jerked his head toward the deck where Doc had the gash sealed and was working on getting the younger di'Taykan out of his suit. "I didn't have time to fukking mess around being pleasant."

  The problem was that not everyone reacted well to the tasik-where not well could be defined as turned into drooling, brain-dead meat. Originally developed to control the large, flightless birds that were the main source of animal protein on the Taykan home world, they were a cheaper "personal weapon" to acquire than black market military guns, and Cho had two on board. "If you've broken him…"

  "Then he's broken," Almon interrupted flatly, most of his light receptors closed, his eyes pale yellow, lid to lid. "And we'll get another one. And if that one tries to kill my thytrin, I'll break them, too."

  He wasn't going to back down, Cho realized. Not when it came to protecting his thytrin. If Almon hadn't been already suited up and on his way into the cargo bay, Nadayki would have bled out and Almon would likely have ripped the helmet off their captured CSO and spaced him. Pushed now, he'd push back and he was still wearing the tasik clipped to his suit. Lucky for him, Cho knew that the trick to turning the kind of people who were willing to do the things the job required into a functioning crew, was knowing when not to push. And when to shove the offender out the air lock.